Laurens in his bout against Buzatti
Sunday September 16th the 31th Koning Willem II tournament was fenced in Tilburg. This tournament has been one of the first tournaments of the season for years and is always well attended, also by our southern neighbors. Because a B-poule is also fenced, the tournament is freely accessible to all levels and each participant has a lot of fencing. Mark, René and Laurens traveled to Tilburg on behalf of Don Quichote.
With 3 and 4 wins in the poule, respectively, René and Laurens qualified for the A-poule. Mark unfortunately does not win a match in his pool. But fortunately for him there is still a B-pool to fence with 12 other men and 6 women. Mark fences another poule and manages to win 1 bout and thus is placed number 13 on the tableau. This means that his first elimination will immediately be against the number 4 of the tableau. Unfortunately, this game is lost with 15-7. No shame, losing to the number 3 of the B-poule final ranking. Mark ends with a 13th place in the B-poule.
At the same time, the matches in the A-poule also continued. René and Laurens were exempt from the first round of eliminations because of their placement after the poules (21 and 12, respectively), but the attentive mathematician can already tell that their ranking means they have to face each other in the next round. On a positive note this means a club member in the next round. The game went on in the beginning, but after the second manch Laurens started to distance himself from René. Eventually it will be 15-10 for Laurens. It is unfortunate that for René the tournament stops here, but an agreement has to be honored: Laurens has to pay beer. This, of course, only after the fencing is done. In the next round Laurens fences Gabriele Buzzatti for a place among the top 8. Although starts well, and the two give each other a run for their money, at 11-12 in the bout the difference is made by Gabriele. The match ends in 15-11 for the Italian and for Laurens the tournament ends with an 11th place.
Our sparring partner Rafaël Tulen was also present at the tournament and came to the semi-finals. In this he unfortunately had to admit defeat to Ruben Derksen, after a very exciting game. With 15-14, Rafaël ends in a 3rd place. Tristan Tulen finally beat Ruben 15-8 in the final and won the tournament.
Don Quichote fencers at the Koning Willem II tournament, with from left to right Mark, René, Laurens and Rafaël
